Some of the problem we're seeing with costs is coming from the opposite of a decrease in footprint but from an increase. A small apartment seems cheaper and compared to a modern house it is. But a modern small apartment has many more requirements than even a mansion from 1890. The safety, environmental and equipment demands of a modern home of any kind are much greater.
On the other hand there has been a concerted effort to hold wages flat for the people at the bottom half of the income ladder. These two things taken together largely account for the perceived decline in quality of life for most people.
The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be?
Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.
The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie.
In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.
Actually, there's every sign of stopping. Look at population growth rates from the 1970s to now: in general, the wealthier you make a population, the less kids they have.
Birth rates in nearly all the high income nations are below replacement. Most of the middle and low income countries are on the same path, with central Africa being a notable exception.
Before his dead Hans Rosling did some great talks about this sort of thing. I'd suggest watching at least one of them on youtube or such.
My theory is that on a macro level, the world keeps getting more competitive because we keep on churning out babies and expect their living standards to be just as good as they always were. I am not blaming anyone for that, but obviously supporting 7.6bn people (2019) at a given living standard is much harder than supporting 6.1bn people (2000) and there's no sign of stopping. As the western population ages and the period of retirement becomes longer, this becomes even harder because they need more support than someone of working age. Humanity as a whole keeps pulling miracles out of hats to make us even more efficient in the resources we consume but of course it is going to get harder and harder to do so.